Although it was, perhaps, not a great commercial success, the 1520 Printer/
Plotter from Commodore is a great achievement. The 1520 contains four
tiny pens, not unlike the ball-point pens we write with every day. Each
of these pens is a different color, and only one is activated at a time,
though any can be activated at any time by telling the printer to switch to
another color. Other commands tell the pen how far up or down to draw,
which direction to "turn", and at what angle to draw. Hours of fun can
be had just writing the little programs to instruct your plotter in the
drawing of many wonderous things. The 1520 is also capable of text printing,
though it achieves this by "drawing" each letter (which is very entertaining
to behold).